The Congress of Vienna allows the three despoilers of Poland to keep the territory which they have seized in the partitions of the 18th century. The only concession to Polish sentiment is that the region around Warsaw becomes a kingdom of Poland, technically independent but united to Russia because the tsar is to be the Polish king. Its origins cause the new state to become known as the Congress Kingdom.

The kingdom remains under Russian control for almost exactly a century. In the early years there is strong Polish resistance, particularly in an uprising which begins in November 1830.

With Polish military units leading the insurrection, it is many months before the Russian army is finally able to suppress the rebels. In the aftermath of the uprising the Russians exile some 10,000 leading members of the Polish community - an event known as the Great Emigration.

In the following decades Russia uses every means to impose Russian culture and language on the Poles, in an intense programme of 'russification'. The other Poles, forcibly confined within the national boundaries of Prussia and Austria, are under similar pressures. Yet the Polish sense of national identity remains sufficiently strong for the next opportunity of independence, after World War I, to be vigorously seized.